HIV treatment and worker absenteeism: Quasi-experimental evidence from a large-scale health program in South Africa

Finding and understanding co-benefits

“…Fadlon and Nielsen (2021) show, using differences-in-differences and matching methods, that severe non-fatal health shocks such as a heart attack or stroke in Denmark reduce earnings by 18% and household income by 3.4%; in contrast, fatal health shocks lead to increases in surviving spouses' labour force participation by 7.5% and annual labour income by 6.8%. Jockers et al (2021), using an instrumental variable method, show that large-scale HIV antiretroviral therapy programmes in South Africa improve life expectancy and reduce absenteeism rates among workers living with HIV by about twelve days per year. Eriksen and colleagues, using differences-in-differences methods, show that the onset of type 1 diabetes in children induces mothers to shift to part-time work and experience a long-term 4-5% decrease in wage income in Denmark (Eriksen et al, 2021).…”